Skinny Chocolate Chippers

I have a six-year-old who gets hyper when she eats sugar. And, at this time of year, it's especially hard to avoid sugar. After trick-or-treating last week, she came home with a full bucket of chocolates and lollipops, and she wanted them all at once.

I made a deal with her. If she gave my husband all of the candy, she could have a toy. It was an expensive deal for us, but it got the sugar out of our house, and got her to calm down a little easier post-Halloween.

I felt a bit heartless, though, and started looking for a tasty, low-sugar snack we could bake together. After a bit of searching and tinkering, I came up with this recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I started with a Mr. Food recipe, and kept working at it until I cut out a little more sugar.

Here's the end result:

These cookies aren't sugar-free, but they have half the sugar of our usual recipe. And, by using miniature chocolate chips, I was able to use fewer chips. As a bonus, they're also much lower in fat and much higher in fiber, so I haven't felt too guilty letting Amelia sneak an extra cookie here and there. In fact, I've been snacking on these, too, and it's almost time to make another batch.

Here's the recipe:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus two tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup Splenda with fiber (you can get it at Target)
1/2 cup low-fat margarine
1/2 cup all-natural applesauce
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
1/2 cup miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, beat the brown sugar, Splenda, margarine and applesauce until smooth. (It won't be one uniform color, but it shouldn't have any lumps). Beat in the egg substitute and vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour mixture until smooth. With a large spatula, stir in the oats and chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on a baking sheet that's been coated with non-stick spray. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

These are very soft at first, so you'll want to let them cook a bit before taking a bite, unless you prefer soft and gooey cookies.

I was a bit worried about baking with the Splenda with fiber, since I'd only ever used it in coffee before, but the cookies taste great and have a very nice texture. They're not crispy, but they're very good for dunking in milk. I'll probably go through some more of my recipes, and see what else I can substitute.

Glow-In-The-Dark Ninja Costume

Amelia got two Halloween costumes this year. She trick-or-treated as Robin but she wanted to dress up as a Ninja when she went to parties and her school's annual Halloween carnival. She was very specific as to what she wanted. She wanted a full jumpsuit, rather than a dress, and she wanted to glow in the dark.

For a pattern, I used McCall's 4951. I made the basic jumpsuit, the mask from view C, and the tabard from view D.

 

This was a tricky pattern. First of all, it's a boy's pattern, and boy's sizes run different from girl's sizes. I made a size 10, which corresponded to Amelia's measurements, and is the size she usually takes, but it was WAY too big. I could have worn it! I ended up having to alter it quite a bit.

 

The pattern also doesn't specify that you have to use quite a bit of ease when you're making the hood and attaching the sleeves. I used my seam ripper more than once.

 

But, when I finally put it together, it looked good.  Amelia thought she looked like a "real ninja," even though she quickly abandoned the mask and boots.

To make the costume glow in the dark, I used glow-in-the-dark thread to embroider the details. I absolutely love glow-in-the-dark thread. When you expose it to light, the effect is so good that it almost glows in the light. The only downside is that it's expensive at up to $5 for a very small spool. I usually wait until there's a thread sale at JoAnn's before I stock up.

 

Since glow-in-the-dark thread is a little bit weaker than standard embroidery thread, it wouldn't stitch through the vinyl, so I used glow-in-the-dark tape to trim the boots. They glowed a little less brightly than the rest of the costume, but it was still a nice effect.

 

I found some great abstract Asian designs for the front of the costume and the sleeve bands, and the back of the costume was embroidered with a ferocious-looking dragon.

Some people did mistake her for a boy in the costume, especially since the hood hid her hair. But that's okay. All Amelia cared about was that she looked fierce and stayed warm. She's a girly girl 364 days out of the year, and disguise is the entire point of Halloween. 



 

Holy Halloween, Batman!

For years, I've been trying to convince Pete that he should go as Batman for Halloween. Before Amelia was born, I wanted to go as Robin, but my dear husband thought  it was a little weird that I wanted to dress up as a 14-year-old boy again (I've been Peter Pan for Halloween twice). By the time I convinced him that there have been female Robins (at least three, by my count), we had Amelia and I thought she should go as Robin, with me as Catwoman. By that point, Pete was convinced, but Amelia wasn't too sure.

This year, all the stars aligned, and everybody thought Batman was a wonderful family theme for Halloween.

I made Pete's costume using an out-of-print Simplicity pattern that I had used when we went as the Wonder Twins a few years back.

There have been "official" Batman patterns over the years, but this one worked nicely, since he wanted to go as a Michael Keaton-era Batman in all black with the classic black-and-yellow logo on the chest. The only modifications I made were to the belt, which I turned into a utility belt with upholstery vinyl, and to the cape, which I lengthened and scalloped at the bottom.

I added the bat logo to the cape and chest with my embroidery machine.

 

Pete has an unusual hat size, so I had to make a Batman mask from scratch. I considered making one out of felt, but I wanted it to look shiny and hold its shape. Fortunately, I found a  great Batman mask tutorial on instructables. The entire mask is made out of duct tape and newspaper. It was very hot for Pete to wear, but it fit perfectly and looked authentic. I based it on the Batman art of Alex Ross. If you look closely, the eyebrows aren't in exact alignment, but it works, and it got the seal of approval from all of Amelia's friends.

 

I wanted to go as a 1966 Julie Newmar-era Catwoman. I used the women's top from the same pattern for my costume, but made stretch pants instead of a skirt by copying a pair of Vera Wang leggings from Kohl's. I made the belt thinner and made my own mask pattern "in the hoop" on my embroidery machine. The ears are simply a headband with triangles of felt glued on. The necklace started out as a Big Lots find that I kept attaching more findings to until it "looked right." My "claws" are press-on nails super-glued to a pair of evening gloves.

 

I wanted to make a Stephanie Brown Robin costume for Amelia:

Stephanie Brown was Robin in 2004, and I always liked the costume. As a Halloween costume, I thought it would be appropriate, since the leggings and tunic would allow a lot of freedom of motion, and I could modify it to be a little less revealing. Unfortunately, Amelia hated the idea. She nixed the costume as "not girly enough," and requested something "prettier." After flipping through every pattern book at JoAnn's, I came up with this:

I made very few modifications to the pattern. All I did was add the Robin logo and the laces.

At first, the tutu was a full, knee-length skirt, but after she wore it to a few parties, it became obvious that the longer skirt made it hard for her to move around, and I trimmed it to make it a fuller, ballet-like tutu. When she wore the costume to Halloween carnivals, she took off the tutu and put on a pair of bike shorts before she hit the bounce houses.

 Her cape was the same cape pattern I use every year:

This cape has been a Wonder Woman cape, a Princess Peach cape, and a Queen of Hearts cape. All I had to do was shorten it a bit to make it a Robin cape. I'll probably find a use for it next year, too.

Amelia's gloves are simply tubes of Lycra. I was glad I didn't work too hard on them, since she promptly took them off and lost them. Pete's gloves were store-bought, as were my shoes. I actually wanted to make shoes for Amelia, but she's in love with her sparkly shoes, and I agreed that they'd be more comfortable for trick-or-treating.

It was a lot of fun to go trick-or-treating in these costumes. We got a lot of instant recognition from kids who loved seeing an adult Batman on the streets, and a Amelia got a lot of comments on how cute she looked in her Robin costume.

I'm glad we waited until this year to break out the Batman theme. The fact that "The Dark Knight Rises" is in theaters meant that there were a lot of Batmen, Robins, and Catwomen on the streets this Halloween, and it was exciting to be wearing such popular costumes. And, Amelia wasn't the only female Robin out there. In fact, Robin seems to be a popular costume for girls.

I'm already thinking about next year's costumes. I'm wondering if Supergirl would ever wear a tutu?

 

 

Machine Embroidery on Paper

We're going to a few Halloween parties tomorrow, and I wanted to create some unique cards to add to my hostess gifts. One of the best ways to create a quick card is to embroider your greeting on paper using your embroidery machine.

The trick to embroidering on paper is picking the right design, the right paper, and the right stabilizer.
Thin papers don't embroider well. Cardstock is best. Although, if you want to embroider on a thinner paper, you can always adhere it to your cardstock with a temporary spray adhesive.

Redwork, cross-stitch, and outlined designs embroider best on paper. Designs with a fill or satin stitching rip up the paper and don't work very well. I decided to create my card using my trick-or-treat fill design, although I only stitched the outline and not the fill.

I used a very soft, tear-away stabilizer, and hooped it in my 4x4 hoop.

Then, I carefully marked the center of my card in pencil

Using the marks I'd made, I centered the card on the hoop using a temporary spray adhesive.

After that was done, I stitched the design. The design I used is typically a fill design, but I only stitched the outline. Stitching the fill would have torn the paper to pieces. I also used a regular embroidery needle, which works just fine on paper.

After I was done, I colored in the outline stitches with my Copic markers.

I also layered paper on the inside of the card to cover the bobbin threads, adding a rectangle of white paper to write my greeting.

This was a very quick and easy way to make cards. If you have a larger hoop, you can also embroider scrapbooking embellishments and book covers.

 

 

 

Creating A Custom Baby Doll (Part Two)

I'm still working on Amelia's latest baby doll. Now that I've removed the factory paint from my doll, it's time to prepare her to take a pacifier. The first thing I did was make the opening of her head a bit larger with an X-Acto knife.

Once again, I took care not to cut into the plastic that won't eventually be covered by the doll's body. When I was done, the opening of her head looked like this:

As you can see, the opening is much larger now, and it'll be easier for me to get my fingers and paintbrushes inside.

The second thing I did was take my package of neodymium magnets, which are availabe at Hobby Lobby.

Make sure you're using either neodymium magnets or rare earth magnets, which are available at Radio Shack. The standard craft magnets won't be strong enough to hold the paci.

I took one of the magnets and put just a little bit of E6000 glue on it. A little goes a long way.

I glued the magnet inside the doll's head, right under the lips. The glue takes a little time to dry, so I put the other magnets on the outside of her lips to hold the first magnet in place while it dries.

Eventually, I'll glue another magnet on a standard pacifier, so the doll can "suck" her paci when it's placed on her mouth.

I think it goes without saying that you should only do this for a doll that will be given to an older child who's a bit past putting things in their  mouth.

The doll is hidden away again (she's going to be a surprise for Amelia), and is waiting to be painted. Painting is the fun part, and I'll cover it next.

Creating A Custom Baby Doll (Part One)

Amelia loves baby dolls. In fact, it's a bit of an obsession with her. Last summer, she decided she wanted a realistic-looking baby that could wear real baby clothes. Instead of buying one ready-made, I thought it would be a good summer project if we made a reborn baby doll together. It took a week of solid work, but the end result was worth it. Meet baby Jacob:

He's not perfect but he's real enough for my six-year-old "little mama" and, when she insisted on taking him to Disneyland two weeks ago, a few well-meaning park employees asked to check his height before letting him board the roller coasters.

There are a lot of great online tutorials that will walk you through making a reborn doll for an adult collector. I'm going to focus on making a custom doll that a child will love. This is a fun project because it allows your child to pick out the doll's hair, eye, and skin color. They can also choose how heavy the doll is (Amelia likes her dolls to weigh up to five or six pounds - as much as a real baby), and whether or not the doll will take a pacifier. The whole project costs about $60. It's not cheap, but it's still much less expensive than buying a boutique baby doll from a catalogue. And a reborn baby will take real baby clothes, which you can find at a yard sale or thrift shop. Here's what we used to make Jacob:

• A somewhat realistic-looking baby doll
• Acrylic paints in purple, lavender, and flesh tones
• Colored craft sand in purple (Optional)
• Oil paints in flesh tones (flesh tints and browns) and cadmium white.
• A cloth doll body, either purchased or handmade
• Acrylic doll eyes in the color of your choice
• A doll wig that will fit your doll
• Fiberfill stuffing
• Platic craft beads (Optional)
• E600 glue or another sturdy craft glue
• Neodymium or rare earth magnets (Optional - Available at Radio Shack or Hobby Lobby. DO NOT USE regular craft magnets)
• A standard pacifier (Optional)
• Paintbrushes
• Makeup sponges
• Cotton Balls
• Acetone (Available at beauty supply shops)
• Colorbox ink pads in rouge or pink tones
• An X-Acto knife
• Cable Ties or strong beading cord
• Soft scrap fabric
• Watercolor Pencil in the same color as your doll wig (Optional)
• False eyelashes (Optional)
• Tacky Glue (Optional)

Recently, Amelia has been hinting that she'd like baby Jacob to have a sister, so I'm making him a
twin. I started with a Berenguer Lots to Cuddle Baby that I found at Wal-Mart for about $20.

 

As you can see, she's a cute doll, but she doesn't have a lot of personality yet. The first thing I did after taking her out of the box was remove her head and limbs from her body. I did this by taking an X-Acto knife and very carefully cutting into the cable ties that were keeping her limbs attached:

 

I tried not to cut into the plastic, although it's okay if you do, providing that you cut into the part that's covered by the cloth body.

After you're done, you should have a creepy-looking collection of baby parts. This would be such a great Halloween display!

The next step is removing the factory paint from the doll. There's a bit of a debate online about whether you should use acetone or non-acetone nail polish remover. When we made baby Jacob, we tried the non-acetone remover and found that it didn't work very well. We really had to scrub to remove any paint. Pure acetone, available at beauty supply shops, worked much better. Just make sure to wear gloves if you wear nail polish or have acrylic nails, and don't work on top of a wood or painted surface.

A little acetone goes a long way, and a quick swipe with a cotton ball will remove all of the paint.

Here's what the doll's face looks like with all of her paint removed. I didn't remove the paint from the hair, because I'll eventually be covering that up with a wig.

After removing the paint, I gave the doll a "bath" in warm, soapy water and dried her thoroughly.

She's currently hiding away, awaitng the next step: getting a pacifier!

Vacation T-shirts!

We've gone to Florida every year since Amelia was small and portable, and I'd encourage it as a vacation destination. The entire Orlando area caters to families. Every restaurant within 50 miles has a changing table, a kid's menu, and a family restroom.

Plus, I would highly recommend the theme parks. Pete and I are roller coaster junkies, and we're raising a little coaster fanatic, so the three of us can spend an entire week going from thrill ride to thrill ride.

As much as I love the parks, however, I despise the prices. At Disneyworld, you can spend $50 or more for a single T-shirt. So, in order to save a little money, I decided to make a few souvenirs before we even boarded the plane. Every day of our vacation, we had matching T-shirts, which I had made ahead of time on my embroidery machine.

There's a huge Dr. Seuss land at Universal Orlando, so these shirts were appropriate for our first day there. Why is Amelia Thing One? Because we let her choose.

The Fantastic Three!

These shirts are decorated with the Hogwart's crest. Mine reads "Slytherin Class of '93," Pete's reads "Hufflepuff Class of '88," and Amelia's reads "Gryffindor Class of '24."

I didn't actually make our Fourth of July Shirts, but I bedazzled mine and Amelia's. Pete passed on the bedazzling.

Amelia's "The Marshall Bunch" shirt doubled as a blanket for Baby Sister, who slept very nicely in the hotel's nightstand drawer.

Hopefully, it'll be a few years before Amelia starts thinking this is dorky. Right now, she loves matching with Mommy and Daddy and, as an added benefit, it makes her much easier to spot in a crowd of cookie-cutter shirts.